WRITING ABOUT NOTHING : CHEKHOV'S 'ARIADNA' AND THE NARCISSISTIC NARRATOR

CHEKHOV'S claims to complete objectivity are well known.' A century after he asserted his freedom as an artist, post-modernist theory has made it impossible for any writer to sustain such a claim. Still, Chekhov remains the most elusive of literary artists; in his best works it is nearly impossible to discover a clear message or unambiguous authorial position. We can productively consider this authorial stance an absence of a stated and positive commitment to anything as a kind of 'nothingness' or void at the centre of Chekhov's works. To assert this is, of course, not original; Lev Shestov began the attack on Chekhov's creation out of nothing' in I 908,2 and it has been noted in one way or another by many serious readers since. For Shestov, the absence of a definite point of view, and with it, a positive message, was a moral lapse on Chekhov's part. Shestov's focus in its own peculiar way complements the critical view taken of Chekhov's lack of political commitment by